{"id":223720,"date":"2026-03-27T22:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T22:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/223720\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T22:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T22:19:08","slug":"woman-sentenced-to-more-than-20-years-in-prison-after-2024-death-of-5-month-old-boy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/223720\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman sentenced to more than 20 years in prison after 2024 death of 5-month-old boy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; A 24-year-old woman will serve more than two decades in prison for her role in the death of a five-month-old baby in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Kristal Morse pleaded guilty today in the 364th District Court and Judge William Eichman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Morse was one of three people arrested and indicted in connection with the boy\u2019s death. The other two people in custody are Casey Harbison and Tiffany Whalen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">GRAPHIC WARNING: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2024\/05\/28\/3-indicted-connection-with-death-5-month-old-boy\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2024\/05\/28\/3-indicted-connection-with-death-5-month-old-boy\/\">3 indicted in connection with death of 5-month-old boy<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">On May 8, 2024, the baby was taken to the emergency room at Covenant Children\u2019s. Hospital staff grew suspicious of the boy\u2019s injuries and called Lubbock police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to a police report, the baby had a skull fracture and brain bleeds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">When investigators interviewed Morse and Harbison, the two said they were unsure how the baby was hurt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">PREVIOUS COVERAGE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2024\/05\/14\/three-people-arrested-connection-with-5-month-olds-injuries\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2024\/05\/14\/three-people-arrested-connection-with-5-month-olds-injuries\/\">Lubbock police investigating death of 5-month-old, three people arrested<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Morse informed police that the baby was born in Washington and that the two were being investigated by Washington Child Services for \u201cmedical neglect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Morse and Harbison were \u201csemi-homeless,\u201d according to Morse. When investigators went to Whalen\u2019s home, where the two moved into, they discovered dog feces and said it was \u201cextremely dirty\u201d and smelled like cat urine and smoke.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">During her interview, Morse said she sometimes \u201cwants to punch things,\u201d but denied hurting the baby. However, she told police, \u201cit was me. I don\u2019t know what you want to hear, it was me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Judge Eichman sentenced Morse on Friday to 25 years in TDCJ.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; A 24-year-old woman will serve more than two decades in prison for her role&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[12837,86950,2441,294,86948,86952,86947,168,170,169,24584,86951,86949,86946],"class_list":{"0":"post-223720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lubbock","8":"tag-baby","9":"tag-casey-harbison","10":"tag-court","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-eichman","13":"tag-five-month-old","14":"tag-kristal-morse","15":"tag-lubbock","16":"tag-lubbock-headlines","17":"tag-lubbock-news","18":"tag-tdcj","19":"tag-tiffany-whalen","20":"tag-william-eichman","21":"tag-woma"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}